(cba:news) stars for early May

[Joe Patterson]

Dear CBAers,

Now it's time to get the CR Boo campaign in high gear.  It's accessible to
all hemispheres, most of the night, and presents some of the most
interesting light curves in CV captivity.  We hope to cover the star
through a full bright-faint cycle, which is probably near 50 days.

We have two other northern targets.  LX Ser is an eclipsing well-placed
star which we have observed on one previous occasion - finding no
superhumps (although the orbital period is suggestive of superhumps). We
should definitely try again - in the usual manner of very long time
series.

The other is RX1643+34 - "Her" in the Downes et al. catalog.  This one
we've also done, and have found superhumps.  Tracking them over a long
baseline should be very interesting.  But of even greater interest are the
20 minute quasi-periodic oscillations - the strongest and most coherent of
all the QPOs seen in CVs.  RX1643 is not quite in prime season yet, but
some early May nibbles on it would be welcome.

In the south, it's V504 Cen, as well as CR Boo which should be mighty
accessible at +8 degrees.

BTW, I've decided to go to the Big Bear IAPPP meeting.  With golf clubs
too.  Hope to see some of you out there!

joe